Many Christians live under a heavy burden of guilt-a joy & strength zapping feeling because of what they’ve been taught. Certain behaviors & opinions are wrongly made out to be of monumental importance-to be BIG sins, deal killers-that aren’t even on God’s radar screen.
If we are not careful, additional standards of righteousness & holiness are gently & compassionately added on until the burden is unbearable. In fact, it was a burden we were never meant to bear. Religious zeal without calm, critical & logical thinking almost always ends up hurting the human spirit by setting the bar higher than God intended. The sad reality is that there are some Christians who are literally more holy than Jesus himself. But for some strange reason they are not as attractive & winsome to ordinary people like Jesus was. The problem is that this type of ‘holiness’ is not from the Holy Spirit but from the human spirit. The former is liberating, joyful & endlessly strengthening while the latter is legalistic, suspicious & weak.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)
When role models do not unashamedly & temperately enjoy liberties, it casts a sinister cloud over what ought to be enjoyed without one hint of condemnation. Why must we continually send a poisonous disapproving message over activities that should be enjoyed wisely? What humanity needs to taste is the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit-the spirit of love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness & self-control. In the area of legitimate liberties we Christians should not be known for our abstinence but for our temperance-not for our distant superficial superiority but for our wholehearted participation. Only then will outsiders see the attractiveness of true holiness & good Christian people will stop living under the weight of false & unnecessary burdens. Cheers!
Well said pastor! I am certain there are many reasons for why some followers of Christ make so many “things” out to be the “root of all evil”. Many people I grew up knowing were obsessed with finding the fault and sinfulness in just about anything and everything and admittedly I was one of those people for a long time. For me, it has always been the fact that I can examine the evil of this world all around me, many of which I am not even directly impacted by but at the same time I am affected at a certain level because I know they exist and I can’t just ignore them. For example, I know sex-trafficking is one of the most profitable industries in this world. I have not yet been impacted by this hellish industry on any sort of a personal level, but yet it still disturbs my heart daily because I can’t escape the reality of it’s monumental cancerous grip on this world. That is just one of the many things that concerns me as a Christian, and I know yourself as well… but some other things such as, pornography addiction, drug addiction, disrespect of woman, cancerous movies that make us laugh, deadly songs written by artist who worship satan himself, are ALL things that bother me JUST as much because they are the very things that mobilize this worlds obsession with sinfulness. I see why people might become “more spiritual” then Jesus, because they are scared do death of being as “shallow in spirit” as Judas. But, I agree with you, I don’t think it is right, and I don’t believe it is affective. But, I have to ask myself, if all the “christians” in this world would start taking sin more serious, eternity more serious, and Jesus more serious… would there be nearly as many “lukewarm” disciples being made to go into the world teaching a false prosperity gospel? Would there be more victories in our local churches instead of divorce? Would there be less “slavery” to fleshly desires and more “slavery” to the King of the Universe? Would there be less Christians who love the things that God hates, and hate the things that God loves? I sure hope so, or I would have to believe you and I serve a powerless God who is in opposition of the God we find in the Bible. With this said, I think there must be a fine balance. We must love the things that God loves, hate the things that God hates and enjoy our liberties freely without guilt or shame in the process. Too many people have a terrible perception of the Church and Christianity because no one ever modeled for them a life that truly loved God and truly loved life and the enjoyment of all his liberties in life. In conclusion, I believe we are prone to excusing sinful things as sinless because we are sinful, and sin must be viewed as serious… but we ought not to be paralyzed by our desire to be holy, we ought to be freely liberated to enjoy life to the FULLEST!
I gather we are talking about drinking. What other types of liberties are we talking about? Thanks!